Toshiba P5000: The Blu-ray laptop that almost never was

Nothing in this world makes sense. First Sega start making games for Nintendo, then Arnold Schwarzenegger is elected mayor of California, and now Toshiba -- former peddler of HD DVD -- releases a laptop with an integrated Blu-ray drive. As if its Blu-ray player wasn't odd enough.

The Satellite P5000 takes its place at the top of the range with a mahoosive 18.4-inch display, and -- yes, you read the first paragraph correctly -- a re-writable Blu-ray drive supporting Blu-ray ROM, BD-R and BD-RE formats. As a result, it'll play Blu-ray films as well as create Blu-ray backup discs, and read and write to standard old dual-layer DVDs.

Naturally, you'll be able to pipe Blu-ray movies and the accompanying sound to an external AV setup via the laptop's HDMI port, but anyone choosing to watch flicks on the laptop itself shouldn't be disappointed. The 18.4-inch display has a widescreen aspect ratio of 16:9 and runs at a native resolution of 1,920x1,080 pixels -- just like all the best big-screen TVs.

Processing is handled by, Tosh promises, "the latest Core 2 Duo" CPUs and up to 4GB of memory. Graphics will come from an as-yet-unnamed Nvidia chip, while sound will be provided by integrated Harman Kardon speakers -- a staple feature in Toshiba multimedia laptops.

That's all fairly standard stuff, we think you'll agree, but the P5000 has some interesting additions. It includes Regza-Link (aka HDMI-CEC) HDMI technology, which lets you control the laptop using any HDMI-CEC compatible remote control -- including those that ship with Toshiba TVs. In addition, the P5000's USB ports are compatible with USB Sleep-and-Charge, meaning you can recharge your mobile devices while the laptop is switched off. Oh, and its mouse trackpad is gesture-sensitive, so you can swipe, pinch and rotate your fingers to browse, zoom or spin documents. Cool, no?

We're weak at the knees with excitement about this one. The P5000 range will hit shelves this coming October. Stick around for more news as we get it, but in the meantime, go check out the photos in our gallery.